Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) is a medical term that describes the sudden death of an infant which remains unexplained after all known and possible causes have been carefully ruled out through autopsy, death scene investigation, and review of the medical history. Nearly 90% of the deaths occur in the first six months of life.
There has been much study into the causes of Sudden infant Death Syndrome (SIDS)in recent years. Incidences of this tragic syndrome have received wide publicity and many studies of SIDS have been conducted. Pediatricians and others studying the syndrome have emphasized the placement of the infant in its crib in an attempt to prevent the onset of SIDS. Many hypotheses have been formulated and presented as to the cause of the syndrome, including such causes as choking and asphyxiation from lack of oxygen. Accordingly, conventional wisdom now is to place an infant on its back to decease the incidence of SIDS which has met with limited success. Even so, SIDS continues to occur among infants for no apparent reason and, to date there is no consensus as to the cause of SIDS.
There are other unexplained incidences of nocturnal death in young adults as well as in infants which exhibit characteristics similar to SIDS. For example, in Asia sudden unexpected death during sleep has been reported among young Asian and Oceanian males around the age of 25. This syndrome, which is named Sudden Unexpected Nocturnal Death syndrome (SUNDS) is also known as Pokkuri Disease in Japan and Bangungut in the Philippines. SUNDS rarely occurs in menstruating females and SUNDS among Caucasians is rare as compared to Asian and Oceanian populations but does occur occasionally. See for example, R. Myerburg Sudden Death. The Heart, McGraw, Hill, New York, 1978, page 732.Sudden unexplained death among older Japanese males around age 40, during sleep is also sufficiently common as to have been named "Karoshi" (dying from exhaustion).